Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [14]
It was after crossing a street that I came to my second observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Even if they see you, they will not slow down. Even if the pedestrian light is green, they will not slow down. So do not play chicken with Chinese drivers. Or you will die.
A moment later, I made my third observation about life in Beijing: Do not play chicken with Chinese cyclists. See observation 2. Same applies. You will die.
And most of Beijing hadn’t even woken up yet.
Never before had I felt so fearful as a pedestrian as I did on that early morning. After dodging the loogies that came whistling past, I’d find myself at an intersection. I would dutifully wait for the pedestrian light, the flashing man, to turn green, and then, assured that I had the right of way, I would confidently take my foot off the curb, only to nearly lose it a moment later as a car hurtled past, sending me sputtering back toward the sidewalk. A moment later, while the little man still flashed green, I’d spy an opening in the traffic and again set forth, only to find myself dangerously entangled amid a dozen cyclists, who may or may not have been cursing at me. I couldn’t say for sure. Chinese for Dummies didn’t cover colloquial cussing.
How, I wondered, was one expected to cross a four-lane road in China, a road shared by cars lined six abreast, with another two lanes carved by a sea of bicycles and mopeds? How does one navigate through the mayhem that is a Chinese city? Very, very carefully, I deduced. Crossing a street was no straightforward wander from curb to curb. It was a problem to be broken down into six parts. First, I’d dart through the mass of bicycles and mopeds that hugged the road near the curb. From there, I’d cross the street one lane at a time as cars whished by just inches from my being, and I’d try very hard to not linger on the noteworthy fact that China has the world’s highest per capita rate of vehicular fatalities. And so I moved, a quick leap at a time, as fleets of cars zoomed around me, driven by people who, it occurred to me, probably hadn’t been driving for all that long.
It was with some surprise, then, that I suddenly found myself on the vast expanse that is Tiananmen Square. I was excited to be there, not merely because I had crossed a dozen intersections to get there and managed to live, but because Tiananmen Square is one of those iconic places that I had always wanted to see. It was gratifyingly familiar in that Communist theme park sort of way. Here was Red China—the lustrous portrait of Mao hanging in its place of honor above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the fluttering red flags, the immense Great Hall of the People, the towering Monument to the People’s Heroes, and of course, the Workers Cultural Palace, because no celebration of all things red is complete without a Workers Palace. Vehicles are forbidden on the square, though exceptions are made for tanks, and in the early, hazy morning, only a scattering of Chinese tour groups were beginning to assemble there. With so few people, its massiveness was laid bare. More than a million people could fit comfortably within its dimensions. Now and then, Mao had enjoyed rallying his Red Guards, and as I strolled about my spine tingled at the thought of Mao’s call and response with a million homicidal teenagers. Be violent! Destroy old culture!
But today there were Chinese tourists. They were easy to identify. Each group was given a distinctive baseball cap. There was the red group and the green group and the baby blue group, and each was tightly gathered around a guide holding an umbrella. As I wandered around, happily gawking, I played an exciting game of spot the secret policeman, and by the time I reached the Chairman